Practice: Large US Businesses plan to cut Spending on Outside Lawyers
During November 2008 the well known legal consultants, Altman Weil Inc., polled 1,292 general counsel (in-house legal advisors ) in the USA as to whether they faced budget cuts in 2009 and, if so, what they planned to do about them. The consultancy’s findings are published in a report entitled “ Law Department Cost Control ” which can be downloaded from its website. Although there were only 115 respondents they represented some of the biggest corporations in America. Some 43.8% had annual revenues of between US$2 and 10 billion and a further 24.3% had revenues of over US$10 billion. The respondents were not identified but businesses of that size are likely to have worldwide interests including some in the UK. Nearly 70% were public companies, 23% private companies and the rest partnerships, not for profit or government agencies. Over two thirds of those respondents had very substantial legal departments. Some 6.2% employed more than 100 lawyers. The most depressing finding...